Add (or bring back) a setting that disables automatic insertion of special Option symbols

Question

Level 1

4 points

Add (or bring back) a setting that disables automatic insertion of special Option symbols

I use the Keyboard Maestro app to create custom shortcuts — for example, Option+J inserts the current date and time.

After upgrading to Tahoe 26.1, Option+J stopped working and now it inserts the “∆” (delta) symbol instead.

I don’t want to disable special symbols entirely; I just want to turn off this feature so I can use my own keybinds without the system overriding them. But I can’t find any setting for this.

Please add this option or bring it back.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Dec 9, 2025 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Dec 9, 2025 11:53 AM in response to RealDoctor

It’s hard-coded into the keyboard layout (input source). You may be able to change the input source to something that doesn’t use that key combination, or edit the layout with something like Ukulele.

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,070 points

Dec 9, 2025 4:03 PM in response to RealDoctor

RealDoctor wrote: After upgrading to Tahoe 26.1, Option+J stopped working and now it inserts the “∆” (delta) symbol instead.

MacOS has never itself had a way to disable option key special characters, so I suspect it is something that has to be fixed in Keyboard Maestro. Would Control or Command work instead?

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

155,240 points

Dec 9, 2025 1:31 PM in response to RealDoctor

You ought to be contacting its developer for help with their product.

Suggest https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/manual/Support, otherwise Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support.

FYI you are not addressing Apple on this site.

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Answer 4

RealDoctor Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 10, 2025 10:30 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom Gewecke wrote:

Would Control or Command work instead?

I use the same bind on Windows (win+j) and Mac (option+j) for many years and would like to keep it the same for convenience. Btw any custom ctrl/cmd binds going to conflict with my working soft binds.

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